Are the World Bank Doing Business Rankings Accurate?

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The World Bank's Doing Business rankings had a goal of evaluating countries’ openness to the private sector.  Right now, they are in a little hot water.  Seven years ago the bank rejected an independent panel’s recommendation to do away with the ranking system due to what appeared to be data manipulation [irregularities].

Now they have paused the publication of its next Doing Business report, originally planned for October, while it conducts “a systematic review and assessment of data changes” in the last five reports, as well as an audit of the data collection process and data integrity controls.

Sounds like they have some explaining to do ... we've always called their work Ease of Doing Business Rankings.